Regulation 19 - Proposed Draft Local Plan Submission

All draft residential and employment Allocations should be reconsidered against strict Landscape Visual Assessment criteria prior to submission of the Plan to the Secretary of State. Additionally, the Areas of Separation should be reviewed on a rolling 3 year basis as part of the Local Plan policy review.

We do not believe that the plan assesses landscape character, appearance and impact as part of the allocation of development sites with sufficient clarity to meet the objectives, and to retain the essentially rural character of the District. A more thorough Landscape Visual Assessment should be undertaken for each allocation, and where that is found to be detrimental to the appearance of that part of the District, the allocation should be reconsidered. Furthermore a detailed review of the Areas of Separation is required to understand which parts of those Areas holds most importance in protecting against coalescence.

Amend section 4a to permit small-scale development only immediately adjacent to an existing built-up area within an Area of Separation where the development does not exceed 20 dwellings in all, and development of the site would not be detrimental to the coalesence between two existing settlements or impact local landscape character.

Under Section 4(a) of this proposed Policy, the Council could better meet its stated Objectives if it were to permit limited small-scale development within Areas of Separation which adjoin Tier 1 to 4 Settlements of not more than 20 dwellings where such development can be demonstrated not to be detrimental to the coalescence between two existing settlements and not without undue impact on the local landscape. This small change should be carefully considered to release pressure for more substantial new development in otherwise greenfield locations where the detrimental impact of the new development will be substantially greater.

Policy SA03 should be removed, and replaced with smaller scale residential allocations particularly in the vicinity of Medium Villages where infrastructure capacity can accommodate smaller areas of growth.

Development of SA03 will be of huge detriment to the rural landscape and the character and quality of the countryside close to Market Harborough. The proposed area of the development is open high quality farmland which contributes to both local biodiversity, the environment and the rural landscape. Additonally the local infrastructure is incapable of supporting a development of this size and nature without significant additional highway and services capacity improvements, and a Harborough northern bypass which is not currently proposed as part of the Local Plan policies.